Budnitz Offers Limited Edition FTB Titanium FatBike

posted by Staff - January 16, 2014 - 1pm EDT

If you’re looking for a belt drive, titanium fatbike with a Rohloff hub, Budnitz is offering a limited edition bike that is right up your alley. Called the FTB (fat tire bike? fat Ti bike?), Budnitz’ first fatbike runs 3.8 inch tires on Surly Rolling Darryl rims (the specs say Rolling Darryl, but the photos show Holy Rolling Darryls). Built with a symmetric front wheel mounted in the White Brother Snowpack fork, the rear end is offset to accommodate the Rohloff Speedhub 500. The titanium frame uses a twin-tube cantilever design and reportedly weighs under 4 pounds.

Budnitz FTBs are built to order, and will run somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,000.

FWIW, the Rolling Darryl is default drilled, the Unholy Rolling Darryl is the exception.

Dave - 01/16/14 - 4:02pm

So many sharks to jump, so little time…

skipdapbaddamarangdoo - 01/16/14 - 4:56pm

Bunch of scienticians on what is cool and not. Heaven forbid someone try to make a living selling bikes without a bunch of clowns behind a keyboard hating on it.

Dominic Giampaolo - 01/16/14 - 5:03pm

Yeah I don’t get it… that bike is like perfect IMHO (and yeah, I own a Surly Pugsley). Belt drive makes a lot of sense for a fat tire bike. And I’ve always loved twin top tube designs so this bike has particular appeal to me.

Steve from MA - 01/16/14 - 5:03pm

How do you not mention the Gates belt drive? 1×14! I had my bike shop in MA build me that drivetrain in 2010 or 2011 under a Trek Sawyer. It was the first of its kind as far as we could see at that time. If you want something like this but not as crazy expensive, look up Union Cycle in Attleboro MA. Rick and his team can get you set up start to finish. It was a great setup once you got used to the Rohloff shifting quirks.

jaybone - 01/16/14 - 5:24pm

budnitz would do well to reconsider that twin-tube cantilever top tube design.

step off your rig into deep soft snow and you’re gonna want a heluva lot more stand over room than that.

@Jaybone: I was actually thinking that this is the first Bunditz bike that I like, but you’re right, a fat bike definitely needs more standover.

Jim - 01/16/14 - 7:51pm

Where’s the cantilever? Oh, and where’s the demand for a $7K bike that could be had for a 1/3 less with a bit more smartz?

Greg - 01/16/14 - 8:21pm

What appeals to me about the bike pictured are the logo-less downtube and tires, as well as the red hubs set against the silver and black. I could build this same bike though, with a normal top tube and better fork, for half of what Binknutz wants, $1500 Rohloff 500/14 included.

Hoshie99 - 01/16/14 - 9:19pm

7k for a snow / fat bike – I just don’t see a big market for that. If you want to go Ti high end, plenty of more recognized builders to go with.

I guess by just doing a prototype or show bike like this, and promoting it, really it’s build to order so they don’t in reality have that much invested in product development.

FattyFatFatFat - 01/17/14 - 4:34am

As with Fred this is the first Bunditz bike that I like. However for that price, i’m out.

One thing this bike has got right and something I am surprised not all fat bikes have, and that’s using an internal gear hub. So many fat bikes on this and other websites are sporting a derailleur/cassette gear system. When pedaling through snow/mud/sand I would have thought that this would be a serious weakness for a bike that meant to laugh at extreme conditions! (may be rear spacing issue with the extra wide tyres i guess…)

3G - 01/17/14 - 1:30pm

I love all of these comments. Thanks to all of you for making me laugh

@Fatty: 100% agree with you, fat bikes totally are a great application for IGH’s. I think with the low gearing required you’d be limited to using the Rohloff Hub. I think the Alfine internals can’t handle super low gearing.

MB - 01/17/14 - 3:01pm

The problem with the Rohloff is that you run it outside the warrantied range to be effective for a fatty.

bizalich - 01/18/14 - 4:57pm

up next in the shark-jumping category is this… what i would honestly challenge Budnitz to publish is a post 12 months from now on how many of these they sell. and also, someone needs to tell them that throwing all kinds of different cool trendy bike stuff into a blender does NOT necessarily equal a good end product… ti frame? cool. fatbike? cool. belt-drive? cool. rohloff? cool. alterna-bend handlebars? cool. $7000 pricetag? hell, even that is acceptable for some bikes. but all thrown together? seems like some hipster-dufus masquerading as the Budnitz bikes product manager went apeshit with the company credit card after reading Roleur, dirt-rag, and Road all in one sitting in the toilet. Oh, and also this bike totally sucks because it doesn’t have the carbon HED wheels #RantOver

Psi Squared - 01/19/14 - 11:08pm

Nothing knots panties like the mention of Budnitz bikes on BikeRumor.

CJ - 04/29/14 - 9:56pm

Budnitz gets a bad rap. The bikes are beautiful. Sure they’re expensive, but if you have the resources you could do a lot worse. Blacksheep didn’t invent the frame style (versions have been around for nearly 100 years) although they did build the original prototype for Budnitz. When Blacksheep didn’t want his business Budnitz found another high end American (not Taiwanese) FrameMaker to build the frames. That’s business. Good for him.

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